Kitchen renovation in Stanmore

Plan the kitchen around movement, storage and services.

Start with the kitchen renovation brief

Map preparation, cooking, washing and storage before choosing cabinet fronts. Measure clearances with doors and drawers open, and decide which existing walls, floors and details belong in the finished room.

Coordinate the cabinetry with water, drainage, extraction, electrics and lighting. Confirm appliance dimensions and access for installation before the layout is signed off; structural alterations need their own design and approval checks.

The local building context

The Stanmore Hill appraisal describes houses and some commercial units from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century on sloping land, among greenery and historic walls. Linear development reflects properties built mainly to serve travellers heading to London along Stanmore Hill, many of whom would have stopped at the Abercorn Arms, an eighteenth-century hotel. Stanmore Hill and upper Green Lane are relatively dense, with small terraced cottages on Green Lane, many fronting the pavement; further down Green Lane, medium-sized detached houses in spacious grounds dominate. Buildings usually do not exceed two storeys, and most are listed or locally listed.

Little Common, at 38 hectares the largest of the four in the 2013 SPD, gained cottages around the Common in the seventeenth century, then eighteenth- and nineteenth-century houses in large grounds, such as Stanmore Hall and Springbok House, which remain, subdivided or with their use changed. Tall walls mark historic estate boundaries, red and yellow brick and clay tiles are typical, and many original timber sashes and casements survive. Around Old Church Lane, the landowner Samuel Wallrock created an Old World, Tudor feel in the 1930s, using much older materials, and dark red handmade brick and clay tile predominate.

Kerry Avenue is different again. Its appraisal records an unusual concentration of inter-war and post-war houses in the Modern or International Style, laid out symmetrically on the axis of Stanmore Station, which opened on 10 December 1932 and became the terminus of the Metropolitan Line, and the 2013 SPD describes its well-preserved Modernist buildings as forming the earliest domestic group in west London. The houses are two or three storeys, with flat roofs often carrying sundecks and curved bays often holding the stair; all are brick, some designed with render to look like concrete against large Crittall windows.

Local design and consent context

Harrow’s Stanmore and Edgware page lists Little Common, Stanmore Hill, Old Church Lane and Kerry Avenue, each with an appraisal, a map and an Article 4 entry. Each appraisal and management strategy is dated December 2013 and forms an appendix to the Stanmore and Edgware Conservation Areas SPD. Harrow’s map documents record the first three as adopted at Cabinet on 12 December 2013, and Kerry Avenue’s as adopted that December.

Directions confirmed on 9 June 2023 and in force from 20 June 2023 added controls on chimneys, flues and soil and vent pipes on houses named on Green Lane, Stanmore Hill, Wood Lane, Aylmer Close and Little Common; on works including replacement windows and doors, roofs, porches and painting at Applegarth, The Glade and The Orchard on Green Lane and at 147 Stanmore Hill; on boundaries at named properties on Green Lane, among them Greystones and Willow Lodge, and at 1–4 Rectory Close; on hard surfacing at 1 and 2 Gate House; and on new accesses to a highway at named buildings in the Kerry Avenue conservation area, including Stanmore Station.

Harrow counts over 300 listed building entries in the borough and 909 locally listed buildings, which are protected locally by planning policy rather than to the statutory standard. Stanmore Station is locally listed and part of the Kerry Avenue conservation area, and Harrow’s local list of parks and gardens includes Bernays Gardens, Stanmore Recreation Ground and Little Common, Stanmore. Ask Harrow whether a building or garden near the work is on the current lists.

Access and site planning

Under powers in the Control of Pollution Act 1974, Harrow permits noisy construction work from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, and 8am to 1pm on Saturday, with none on Sundays or bank holidays, and suggests warning neighbours in advance about the work and how long it will last. In a flat, ask the managing agent about any building rules on working hours, deliveries and common parts, and if you stay at home, agree which rooms remain in use and when water or power will be off.

Continue planning

The Stanmore area guide · Kitchen renovation across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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